This article discusses the overlap between British Indian networks of postal communication and trade, and smuggling of opium within a nineteenth-century inter-Asian context. These circulatory networks received support from the expansion of global shipping lines. The colonial state subsidised opium steamers of private shipping companies and converted them into mail packets, using them to transport illicit opium to parts of Southeast and East Asia. Domestically, inland postal routes came to be appropriated by local traders, cultivators and itinerants to smuggle excess opium, growing outside the purview of the colonial state, to various ports in western India, thereby cutting into the profits and prestige of the colonial state. Simultaneously, official complicity in opium smuggling also came to the fore, evident in the case of post offices situated in the eastern parts of the subcontinent, highlighting the inherent weaknesses within the colonial system of administration.

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“黑邮件”：19 世纪印度的鸦片和邮政交易网络

本文讨论了英属印度邮政通信和贸易网络之间的重叠，以及 19 世纪亚洲范围内的鸦片走私。这些循环网络得到了全球航线扩张的支持。殖民国家补贴私人航运公司的鸦片轮船，并将它们转换成邮包，用它们将非法鸦片运送到东南亚和东亚的部分地区。在国内，内陆邮政路线被当地商人、种植者和流动者占用，将多余的鸦片走私到殖民地国家管辖范围之外的各个港口，从而削弱了殖民地国家的利润和威望。与此同时，鸦片走私的官方同谋也浮出水面，